subvert an election. that is what apparently played out during the 2020 presidential race that is according to communications exclusively obtained by cnn. now, they include texts between the former president s son, don jr., and white house chief of staff mark meadows. as ryan nobles reports, the texting began before the vote was fully counted. reporter: november 5th, 2020, two days after the 2020 election. votes were still being counted. the final outcome, still in doubt. but president trump s son, don jr., was already passing on ideas for overturning the election if necessary to ensure a second term for his father. it is very simple, trump jr. texted before outlining several options. we have operational control. total leverage. trump jr. was texting white house chief of staff mark meadows. this text reviewed by cnn hasn t been revealed publicly before. it is in the possession of the january 6th select committee. in a statement to cnn, trump jr. s lawyer says, quote, after
the election, don received numerous messages from supporters and others. given the date, this message likely originated from someone else and was forwarded. meadows attorney declined to comment. on election night, president trump was already laying the groundwork to claim the election was stolen. to me, this is a very sad moment. and we will win this, and we as far as i m concerned, we already have won. reporter: behind the scenes, his son and adviser don jr. were sharing ideas with meadows for how to subvert the electoral college process. leveraging republican majorities in the senate, and swing state legislatures. state assemblies can step in and vote to put forward the electoral slate trump jr. texted. the text message from days after the election ticks through questionable legal theories. many of which would eventually be employed by the trump campaign and gop operatives across the country. we have multiple paths. we control them all. the paths trump jr. refers to in the tex
the u.s. is responding to china s covid outbreak, meantime. its advice to most americans there? get out or just don t travel there. the u.s. state department just authorized nonemergency u.s. government workers and family members of all government employees to voluntarily come home. meantime, in shanghai, the outbreak shows no signs of slowing. of the 25,000 cases reported friday in all of china, more than 23,000 were reported in shanghai. anna coren is following this story for us from hong kong and joins us now. anna, good to see you. you know, it is notable that given these numbers, residents of shanghai, you know, they still have no idea when this harsh lockdown might come to an end. absolutely, paula. people in shanghai are absolutely furious. you mentioned what the the u.s. government has issued its staff the consulate there. that is not a luxury obviously
is restricted, particularly around trump tower. trump tower very close to where this happened. absolutely right. so i think we ll be all interested to know exactly what was the flight plane for this chopper, and why and how this pilot found the need to put down on top of a skyscraper. we simply don t have the answer to that. usually these choppers are moving up and down the rivers, the hudson river and east river. and we have had accidents and disasters in both of those rivers related to helicopters in the past. you may recall over the hudson river a number of years ago, we had two helicopters crash into each other. and on the east river, helicopters go down in the river. so to have an incident actually on top of a skyscraper over the central part of manhattan if you re not from new york or don t travel there often. that is dead center in the middle of manhattan, where this incident occurred. so why this helicopter was trafficking where it was is going to be something that many p
if you go to the state department website and you re planning to travel there, their advice to you is don t travel there. reconsider your travel plans. you know, while using whatever word he did or did not use may be something that we can sit around and debate about, there s nothing racial about it. and to politicize it and make it about race is not only is unfair to him but it also kind of waters down the seriousness of true racism. but let s be clear. you picked out one country. he disparaged an entire country. i don t know what he said. to call the entire continent an s-hole like south africa, egypt, morocco and on and on that shouldn t be referred to in